By Maria José Romero
The International Finance Corporation (IFC), the largest global development institution focused exclusively on the private sector in developing countries, “knows very little about potential environmental or social impacts of its ...

By Maria José Romero
The European Commission (EC) is pushing ahead with its plan to increasingly ‘blend’ development aid with private finance, despite the fact that the Commission’s commitment to development seems weak and civil society groups ...

by Jesse Griffiths
I’m in the middle of updating Eurodad’s summary of financial inflows and outflows to developing countries – watch this space – but thought I’d share some really interesting graphs.
Here’s the first, which I put together from the World Bank’s online database. It shows “Gross capital formation” - which used to have the more straightforward title of “Gross domestic investment” - as a share of GDP. It shows just how successful developing countries have become in mobilising resources for investment, even despite the global economic crisis. Impressive stuff, isn’t it?
Gross capital formation by income group (% GDP)
This measure is a mix of many different things. It includes private and public investment,which could be funded by earnings or borrowing. ...

Procurement is a keystone in development finance. Eurodad estimates that US$ 69 billion of aid money is spent on procuring goods and services annually either by donors or by recipient countries, more than 50% of total Official Development Assistance (ODA). ...

By Francesca Giubilo,
Is the real purpose of aid to eradicate poverty or is it just another excuse to allow rich firms to raise their own incomes and boost the economy of developed countries? Recent research conducted by the Guardian has assessed that two-third of the US food aid contracts are awarded to three of the biggest agribusiness companies. (Louis) Dreyfus; ADM, Bunge and Cargill, also known as the ABCD group, account for between 75% and 90% of the global grain trade, yet receive the majority of US food aid contracts.
So, what lies beyond aid? Food aid refers to a specific category of ODA aimed at reducing hunger and starvation either in the short term, through emergency operations, or in the long term. However, an Oxfam study which assesses the inefficiency of US food aid, points ...

BRUSSELS, 29 May 2012: A new Eurodad report reveals how donor governments and international institutions are increasingly seeing investing public money in private companies as a panacea for combatting global poverty, despite weak evidence of effectiveness.
Eurodad’s report shows that this is far from being a silver bullet. “Private investment where it’s needed and appropriate can be valuable,” said Eurodad private finance analyst and report author Jeroen Kwakkenbos, “but there is little ...

BRUSSELS, 19 April, 2012: A new Eurodad report reveals how rich nations are using a complex web of private funds and financial intermediaries to wiggle out of pledges to provide $100 billion a year to help developing countries cope with the devastating effects of climate change.
“Overreliance on the private sector could spell disaster for the world’s poorest,” said Javier Pereira, who authored the report for Eurodad, the European Network on Debt and Development. “Leveraging money through ...